[wobbleblob]

I think you have this upside down.

The oligarchs didn't swoop in and ruin everything. The Russian government did not want their resources and industry controlled by foreign share holders, so they were dead set on privatizing the economy by selling to Russians only.

With this constraint, the handful of Russians who were able to raise capital in such a short time, without foreign counter bids, got the privatized businesses far below market prices as a result. This is what made them billionaires, and turned them into the oligarchs.

[hetman]

Which ever way the cause and effect happened, I think parent's point stands that there was little the US could have done to intervene.

[wobbleblob]

Not only that, it would have been highly inappropriate for the US to intervene in another country's domestic affairs uninvited.

The assumption everything bad is always our fault is just the other side of the coin of the narcissistic belief that we're the greatest of all time at everything and therefor always right.

[thehappypm]

Yes, they swooped in, as I said